


A Good Man

by bespectacledwallflower



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Espionage, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7719952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bespectacledwallflower/pseuds/bespectacledwallflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long time ago, on a planet being racked by a new war, an American infantryman and fighter pilot are stranded together in Morocco.</p><p>(inspired by http://jediprompts.tumblr.com/post/144433556374/my-au-photoset-jedistormpilot-ww2-requested-by)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've hit a slump in my other fic, Night Shift. Hate that it's happening, but it's happening. I had this idea a while back and did a lot to sketch it out, so I figure until I can get back on track I might as well have fun with the derailment. Hope you enjoy! I'm always a sucker for a good WWII AU.

 

> **Operation Torch,**  the British-American invasion of occupied French Morocco and Algeria,landed its Western Taskforce at Port Lyautey on November 8, 1942, at first light. They did not anticipate Vichy French resistance and had no preliminary strike, which backfired on the American forces in one of their first battles of World War Two. Intel on the area from René Malevergne confirmed Port Lyautey to be one of the strongest Nazi-sympathetic regions in all of Morocco.

 

Private Finnegan Warley was no longer sure where the line between prudence and cowardice lay. On the one hand, he had a duty to his regiment to do his damnedest to find them again and stand by them in the fight. On the other, he shouldn't take any foolish risks in trying to get back, especially with no navigation equipment in enemy territory.

Or at least, he assumed this was still enemy territory. Could he have walked that far, into Spanish Morocco? This certainly wasn't the beach anymore. He'd come so far now that he had no idea where he was. The roaring of the storm had hailed upon Finn's ears in a way so like the gunfire, and the sound of either or both had set his feet to matching the pace of his thumping heart. Through the darkness, he could not make out the identities of the forms around him running, or the felled ones he tripped over...

It was light now, and he did not run, but walked. He had not stopped once. The gun strapped to his back rattled dully with each step, full up with bullets in a way Finn wished his stomach could be with food, more than Finn had ever wished anything before. More than he wished he could have escaped boot camp, or destroyed his draft card--he could have eaten his draft card then, and been happy with the crisp, inky flavor. There was nothing for him but desert, desert, desert and hours, hours, hours.

The desert of deserting: if they ever found him again here, he would almost certainly be sent to the very front for his un-patriotic attitude. Finnegan Warley kept walking.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Open https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfbwBdaSanw in a new tab for the proper effect)

Finn wasn't the one holding the grease pencil at the time, but he wished he was. It was in Poe's hands, which also held greater skill in sketching than his. Poe never liked drawing himself, but he also couldn't see himself from where Finn sat: right ankle crossed over left knee to cradle the sketchbook, left hand holding it steady while the right scratched away, a cluster of dark waves falling over the forehead behind a thin veil from the rolled cigarette at the corner of his mouth, pursed tight in concentration. The lowering sun came from behind and to the left of the California patio, leaving interesting shadow play on the planes of his face and the fine bones of his knuckles. But even a really clean sketch would be insufficient--it wouldn't catch the breeze that ruffled his hair, or his disgruntled huff when the breeze picked up to a wind and lifted the corners of his pages. Film would dry up the wash of orange over his form and the tan on his left forearm from his habit of dangling it out the car window when he drove.

This house wasn't theirs; a friend from Poe's division had it with his new wife and offered it up to the two as a favor. Finn didn't have the language to express it, but he wished they could get a house like this one, away from the apartments that he knew growing up. Cramped balconies with no horizon line can't compare to a patio on a high hill, with this bright orange sunset light to observe Poe by.

In one of her letters to Poe after it was all over, Rey had talked about the afternoon she spent before the correspondents' gala in Paris. All of the great works had finally been returned to the Louvre that year, and as she roamed past the _Grande Odalisque_ , someone was telling their companion how there's a certain way about paintings where the artist was in love with the model. Finn wondered if it also worked in reverse.

"Your expression changed." Poe lifted from the paper to move the cigarette out of the way. "I can't work like this. You're fired."

He had barely cracked a smile before Finn threw the nearest magazine at his head.

 

"What were you thinking about when I fired you?"

 _That's always an abysmal question_ , said Finn's replying sigh. His hands stayed laced behind his neck, as they were before the tragic and temporary loss of his modeling job, but his eyes traveled up to the distant deep blue stripe of sky. "Rey, whatever she's doing now. Morocco."

"What part of Morocco?" Poe had gone back to the sketch, the cigarette stub smoking softly in the ashtray. His voice did not betray the new tension in his shoulders at the mention of Morocco.

"Geographically? Or in time?"

"Either."

Finn adjusted his jaw. "Well, it was before you. So...not sure exactly where on a map. But it was the beginning part."

The grease pencil made a few more fine gestures that broadened with frustration. "God-- _damn_ it, Finn, I can't ever get your eyes right."

Finn detangled a hand to reach. "Lemme see if it's off."

"How would _you_ know what you look like from here?"

"I see me in the mirror every day!"

"Well I'm lookin' at you right now! Let me--no, go back to how you were, I can deal with it."

Finn could feel his balance slipping from his awkward lean, hand outstretched. "If it looks as bad as you think it looks--"

" _Finn_ \--"

" _Poe_ , I'm gonna fall if you don't hand me the _goddamn_ drawing," he said, in that needlessly intense way that Poe hated to admit that he also possessed in equal measure. To make sure Finn knew that, he rolled his eyes fully back into his head when he handed over the sketchbook.

 

The cheap deck chair's legs wobbled funnily on reconnection with the patio rather than resounding some satisfying  _clack._ Finn curled in a little around the sketchbook to keep out the wind.

Poe had been watching Finn closely for nearly an hour, but he still attuned just as keenly to Finn's eyes, flickering over his work. Poe had never really fancied himself more than a doodler, but with long waits between deployments, guys tend to pick up habits to eat up the time and the worry. He'd drawn whatever and whoever was closest without much thought; the results grew more anatomically and proportionally precise as he practiced, but he hadn't been trying to draw things he really wanted to capture until after the war was over. Maybe that was what threw him off. Drawing from life was damn near impossible when the image before him carried the weight of shared experience. Sentimentality.

Finn's face hadn't moved much looking at the picture, and in profile he was tough to read. His lips didn't move much either when he asked, "What do you think Rey meant in that letter about the museum?"

"What, the strangers talking by her?"

"Yeah. How do you think people can tell?"

Poe rose from his seat and sauntered behind Finn's chair back. The muscles in Finn's shoulders loosened and yielded to Poe leaning his crossed forearms over them. "I feel like some people can read a hell of a lot into a painting if they just want to sound smarter than they really are."

"So it's all bullshit, then."

"Nah, maybe not all of it." Finn felt the scratch of stubble at his temple. "It's corny, but...what am I tryin' to say...I figure if you look at it right, good art has to be true. So if you see a really great work, whether it's famous or not, if it's what the artist saw and put on paper somehow, and you pick up on all those emotions looking at it, then it's true. Some stuff _had_ to be just a guy painting some lady he paid to pose naked for him, but the rest of it...yeah, you can feel it."

 

In the drawing, Finn's eyes were not looking off into the distance as they were when they started. They were looking right back at Finn and Poe, with a nearly imperceptible smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what's better than writing 3 papers in 3 weeks? Writing fic you dropped almost a full year ago.


End file.
